Reviews still aren't showing up on the site for some reason, but I can see them in my email, so thank you to everyone! I've been obsessed with this story since I began writing it. Hence why I can't stop/won't stop until it's over. (Thank god I got so many days off of work before and after the holidays). It is, however, almost over, and this is the last official chapter. There's only an epilogue after this.
I do have plans to finish up Dead Girl Walking and Enlightenment (and in spite of what I said, to write a sequel to Dark Horse), but this idea was just screaming at me and it wouldn't shut up until I put pen to paper (or fingers to keys, as it were).
I'm starting to get some stirrings about a Rue/Cato story. And no, it would not involve pedophilia. It would take place years after the 74th games, when she's like 19 and he's 23. Unlike my other stories however, this one is horrifically tragic.
Anyway. Back to this story.
Giving credit where credit is due: We already know I don't own THG or the characters, but I wanted to explicitly mention that I flat out lifted the concept of Peeta as a representation of rebirth at the end of Mockingjay and applied it to Cato in this chapter.
And finally, from Wiktionary:
Used up (adj.): worn out; depleted; exhausted; having nothing left; useless, due to the expenditure of all resources.
Why did I include that definition you ask?
; )
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"Well?" was the first word out of his mouth when she opened her front door two Fridays later.
"Hmm-mmm," she said, shaking her head. "It didn't take."
"Oh." He felt disappointed, but only for a second, and then he felt hopeful again. "Should we give it another shot?"he asked at exactly the same moment she said "Let's try again."
They burst out laughing.
He put his hands on her waist and she drew his head down to hers and he pushed her, gently, into her room, and this time he buried his face between her legs and made her come twice with his tongue before he entered her and made her come a third time.
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There had been a time when Cato had wondered why Katniss, after saying yes to Plutarch's plan, hadn't gone to Gale, who moved to 3 with Beetee after the war, to ask him to be her first. So she could get in a practice run of sorts.
He had never asked her about it because he knew it wasn't his business, and so he had never gotten an answer.
But over time, he had come to understand, without her saying a word, exactly why. The answer was so obvious.
She hadn't been ready to have sex with anyone. She'd simply agreed to it for the sake of the rebellion. So asking Gale to do it first wouldn't have made it somehow "more" her choice. She still would have been doing something she didn't really want to do before she was ready to do it. But twice. Once with Gale, once with Cato.
So that was why. That and it would have hurt Gale so badly, he knew.
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Two Fridays later, when she opened the front door, he looked at her, the question in his eyes.
She smiled softly and shook her head. "Didn't take."
"Oh. Should we-?"
"Yeah," she nodded. He put his hands on her waist and she drew his head down to hers and he pushed her, gently, into her room, and this time he put his weight on his forearms and held her head in his hands and looked into her eyes as he rocked into her.
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"I'm sorry about the tracker jackers," she said afterward, as he lay with his head on her chest.
"Seriously?" he asked, raising his head to look at her. "That was like a whole lifetime ago it feels like. And it's completely irrelevant to our lives now. I wasn't even the same person. And would you really not have done that if you could go back? I was gonna kill you when you came down from that tree. I'm actually glad you did it."
"I know. And no, I still would have done it. But I'm still sorry. And I remember those stings," she shuddered. "God they hurt like hell."
"They did," he agreed, and pressed an open mouthed kiss to her shoulder. "I think" kiss "you should make it up to me" kiss "by having sex with me" kiss "on Sunday" kiss "when you come to get Violet."
She laughed and smacked him playfully on the shoulder and he grinned at her.
"How'd you get that 11?" he asked, resting his chin on her chest.
"You won't believe me."
"Just tell me."
"You know how the gamemakers all sat up in that box eating and drinking?"
"Yeah."
"Well I was the last one to go and they weren't paying any attention to me and it pissed me off. So I shot the apple out of the pig's mouth and into the wall."
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I told you you wouldn't believe me. Plutarch fell into the punch bowl he was so startled. And then I bowed and said 'Thank you for your consideration." Sarcastically, of course. Effie lost her shit when she found out."
He was laughing against her, a warm laugh, from his belly. "Thank god you dropped that bow, or I would have been dead for sure." And then he froze in horror, eyes wide as he realized what he'd just said.
But she wasn't angry. The past hurt, it was true, but there was no sense in dwelling on it. Peeta had told her that four weeks ago in the Meadow.
"I'm glad you aren't dead," she whispered, stroking Cato's cheek and kissing his forehead. He let out a sigh of relief and closed his eyes and pressed his lips to her breastbone. "I'm sorry for the arena too," she said. "The second one. I should have told you I'd never had sex before. I wasn't trying to lie, I just didn't think you would care one way or the other. God that's an awful thing to say," she said when she saw the pain on his face at the implication that she had simply assumed he was too cold to care about whether or not she was a virgin.
"No, it's ok," he said. "I didn't exactly give you a reason to think I would care one way or the other. And the truth is, not too long before that I wouldn't have cared. I would have been like, fuck it, if she's agreed to it, then she's agreed to it, and who gives a shit if it hurts."
"Why did you care? I mean at that point. It seemed...early on...for us."
He picked up her hand and studied it, intertwining his fingers with hers. "Brutus said something to me on our tour. About how the other victors understood me and I understood them even if I didn't realize it yet. And I don't think I consciously acknowledged the truth of it until after Violet was born, but when you poured me that drink and said that thing about failing our district partners and then it turned out we had similar...coping mechanisms...I think somehow I knew you understood me and I understood you and...yeah. I cared about you. I just didn't realize it."
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He wanted her and Violet to come live with him in 13 more than anything. He had wanted it from the time the war had ended.
But he would not ask.
He had seen, vicariously through Gale Hawthorne, what happened when she was pushed for anything she didn't want and he was just grateful that she seemed so enthusiastic about having another baby with him.
They called her the Girl on Fire for a reason for chrissakes. And when she'd been nothing more than a pile of dying embers, Gale had been like a poker, trying to stir her up. And sometimes he'd gotten an angry spark or two out of her. But that wasn't how you rebuilt a fire.
You rebuilt a fire by giving it fuel to sustain it, and then backing off and letting it breathe. Motherhood was a source of fuel for Katniss. Cato had realized that after she had Violet. It made sense, considering the maternal love she bore for her sister.
So he hadn't been surprised that she'd wanted a second child just as much as he did. But he hadn't been sure if she would want it with him.
And she seemed content enough with life in 12, where she had her sister and Haymitch and the forest to hunt in, and even her mother, with whom she seemed to have grown closer.
So he hadn't said anything when she decided to return to her home district, determined to just let her breathe..
And he would have moved to 12 too. He would have willingly abandoned everything in 13 and gone to work in the coal mines, just so he could return home every evening to see her and Violet. But Katniss had not asked him and he would not intrude. He would not stifle her. He would not snuff out the very warmth that made her so desirable.
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Two Fridays later, she yanked the front door open before he'd even knocked. He looked at her, the question in his eyes.
She shook her head and her eyes were dark. "Didn't take," she said flatly.
"Oh…" he said, drawing back, not quite sure how to read her. Was she mad? Had he done something wrong that he wasn't aware of?
But she grasped the fabric of his shirt in her fists and kissed him hard, and then she tugged him inside and kicked the door shut, and she pushed him, none too gently, into her room before shoving him down on the bed. She yanked off his pants and she put her mouth on him and just when he thought he was going to have to reach down and pull her off of him so he wouldn't empty himself into her throat, she released him with an emphatic pop of her lips and sunk herself onto him. And as she pinned his wrists down on either side of his head while she fucked him mercilessly, he realized that, uncharacteristically for her, she was wearing a dress and no underwear.
"What the hell was that?" he asked exactly three minutes and seventeen seconds later when she fell forward onto his chest.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I've been thinking about that for like a week and a half. It was getting unbearable."
"Don't apologize, it was fucking hot. But...why didn't you just take care of it yourself?"
"I did. A lot. Every day. More than once. But it didn't help. I actually think it made it worse."
"Oh..well...shit."
"What?"
He pulsed inside of her once, to show her that his dick, which had softened a little, was now starting to grow hard again at the thought of her touching herself.
"Oh."
"Yeah...so before it gets any worse, maybe you should-Ngha-ha," he temporarily lost his ability to speak when, with that devilish look in her eyes, she clenched around him deliberately.
"Be careful," he warned, his voice low and menacing. "I don't think you understand what you're asking for. This time could take a lot longer and you might feel….used up...afterwards."
She lifted her chin defiantly and looked down at him through narrowed eyes. "So use me up," she said and then she clenched again.
And before she could comprehend what was happening, she was laid out flat on her stomach and he was thrusting relentlessly into her.
Sixteen minutes, forty-two seconds and three orgasms (two for her, one for him) later, he went limp against her back. "Used up?" he whispered into her ear.
"Yes," she sighed dreamily, her eyes glazed over. "At least until Sunday."
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She had made the right decision to return to 12 right after the war. It was just familiar enough, just home-like enough, and yet different enough as it rebuilt itself, to strike a therapeutic balance for her.
But now she felt not quite whole. Now she found that she only felt complete when she was with both her daughter and Cato.
And she could ask him to move to 12 and he would pack himself up in a week. She knew that. That was how much he loved his daughter. But he had built that house. And he had friends up there, she knew. Friends he really liked and enjoyed. Friends he drank beer with and fished with and went hiking with. And he liked his job. He was happy because he was creating and rebuilding.
There were forests up there. He lived on the outskirts. A five minute walk would get her into the trees. They had rabbits and squirrels and wild turkeys and deer. And if she missed her mother and Prim and Haymitch, it was no big deal. They were just a couple of hours away by train.
There was only one thing that made her hesitate. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had fallen in love with him because he was hope and growth and healing and rebirth personified. But she didn't think that he felt the same way. He cared deeply for her as the mother of his child. He found her attractive. That much was clear. But she wanted him to love her for her. Simply. For who she was. It was a selfish feeling, and she knew it. She told herself this was no reason to keep his child from moving in with him and to suck it up and humble herself and ask him if he would be ok with her moving to 13.
But her pride. Her awful pride. It kept her from saying anything.
Until one Thursday night, as she was packing to leave the next day for Finnick and Annie's wedding in 4, she returned to her bathroom to check the results of the pregnancy test she'd just taken.
And then she knew that she was being selfish. And she decided that she would say something to him.
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Cato had arrived at the hotel in 4 late in the afternoon of that same Thursday. He didn't know Annie all that well, and he hadn't seen Finnick since the end of the war, but he now wholeheartedly subscribed to the philosophy of one big Victor family, and all of them had turned out for the wedding.
He dumped his luggage in the room he had gotten for himself and Katniss, who wouldn't arrive until the next evening, and headed to the lobby bar to see who else was there.
He was enjoying a glass of whiskey with Finnick and Haymitch and Gloss when Brutus entered. He hadn't seen his mentor since the end of the war either. Brutus, who had not taken part in the final skirmish in 2, had come to 13 briefly and the two had made amends to one another, but the older man had returned to his home district after a couple of weeks.
"Well," he said as Cato enveloped him in a bear hug. "How's the baby?"
"Not a baby anymore," Cato said. "She's walking and talking." And he pulled out his phone and proceeded to bore Brutus with picture after picture of his daughter and a long detailed explanation of what was going on in each one and why it was especially adorable.
"Oh, and this video of her," he said. "You have to watch it. Then you can get a drink, I swear."
It was an old one, before Violet had even turned 2, and it featured Katniss, eyes sparkling, holding the toddler on her lap as she sat in her kitchen.
"Is it on?" she asked. "Is it recording?"
"Yes," came his exasperated voice from behind the camera. "Now what is it? Why are you making me do this?"
"Show him what we practiced," Katniss cooed into Violet's ear. "Who is that?" she asked, pointing to the camera. "Who is that?"
Violet just giggled and stuck her fist in her mouth.
"Seriously?" Katniss said. "All morning long. All. Morning. Long. And now that he's finally here-"
"DADA!" Violet erupted. "DADA DADA DADA!"
The camera shook.
Katniss giggled. "Yes!" she cried her eyes on Cato. "Who is that again?"
"DADA!"
"Oh my god!" came Cato's teary voice. "How-"
"We've been practicing," Katniss beamed. "She said 'Mama' for the first time last week, so every day I've been pointing to myself and saying 'Mommy,' and then I pull up a picture of you and say 'Daddy' and-"
But her words were cut off, and the video made it clear by the way it was suddenly pressed into the fabric of her shirt that Cato had thrown his arms around both his child and her mother at once, and there was a muffled, unintelligible sound coming from him, and then Katniss's soothing voice saying "It's ok, it's ok," as Violet continued to proclaim "DADA!" over and over again. And then the video ended.
Cato looked at him sheepishly and grinned. "I'm not usually so-"
"Girly?" Brutus asked.
"Overwhelmed," Cato corrected, punching his mentor in the shoulder.
Brutus studied him. "And you don't live with them?"
"Hmm-mmm."
"Why not?"
"We're...it's not like that with me and Katniss. I mean, I love Violet to death and I would love to be near her all the time, but…"
"She's absolutely in love with you."
"Well, she's a daddy's girl," Cato grinned.
"That's not who I was talking about," Brutus said. Cato stopped short. "Watch that video again. But pay attention to Katniss. Look at her eyes. Listen to her voice. Look at the way she looks at you. And what kind of single mother makes sure to even things out by teaching her child to say 'Daddy' as soon as they say 'Mama?'"
"No, you don't understand, she's never asked me to move in. She's never asked to come live with me."
"And have you asked her to come live with you? Have you asked her if you can move in with her?"
"No, but it's different. I don't want to impose."
"And maybe she doesn't either. Maybe she doesn't realize you're in love with her too."
"Wh-I never said I was in love with her."
"But you are, aren't you?"
Cato just looked at his mentor in shock. "Yes," he finally admitted.
"See. It's like I said. I understand you. And her. But apparently there are some limits to just how well you two," he pointed back and forth between Cato and the phone, "understand each other. Now I'm gonna go get my goddamned drink."
And he left Cato standing there, his heart pounding so hard in his chest he thought it would explode.
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He was in the lobby again the next night when she approached the front desk to get her key.
He tried to catch her eye, but she didn't notice him.
He downed the rest of his drink. "I'm gonna go," he said to Brutus.
Brutus looked at him in disbelief. "It's not even 8:30."
"Yeah. I know."
"You only had one drink."
"Yeah. I know."
Brutus turned his head to see Katniss's back as she made her way down the hall, and then he smirked knowingly. "Aaaah, I get it."
"Shut up Brutus." Cato said, and ducked his head shyly. .
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When he opened the door to the room, she had just set her suitcase on the luggage rack.
He looked at her, the question in his eyes.
She gave him a small smile, her eyes alight, her cheeks aglow.
He wanted to shout with the joy of it, but he kept his mouth shut because he was afraid that if he opened it, his heart, which had leapt in his chest, would rise up into his throat and escape into the air before he could catch it.
So he grinned back at her instead, waiting for her to say it.
But she didn't speak a word.
She just looked at him with those shining eyes.
So he pretended to misunderstand.
He put his hands on her waist and she drew his head down to hers, and he pushed her, gently, onto the bed.
And afterward, as he lay with his head on her chest and his hand on her stomach, she whispered, "It took."
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The next morning, as they lay in bed, she decided it was time.
"That third bedroom," she said.
"Yeah?"
"Did you build that because you knew you wanted another baby?"
"Yeah."
"Aren't you...lonely there in that house? With three bedrooms and just you?"
He eyed her warily. "Yes."
"Do you want...do you want Violet and this," she pointed to her stomach, "whatever this turns out to be...to come live with you?"
His eyes took on a look of pain. "You know the answer to that Katniss."
She nodded. "Ok."
"Ok? Wh..ok what? What does that mean?"
"It means they can come live with you."
"What about you?" he asked slowly.
"Well, yeah, I was wondering if it would be ok if I…" She looked away from him. "If I…"
"If you came and lived with me too?" he finished.
"Yes," she sighed, grateful he'd said the words for her.
"Of course you can come live with me. Why the hell would I say no?"
"I figured you'd say it was ok," she said hurriedly. "Because it would mean you'd get to live with both of your children. I just didn't want to impose myself-"
"Impose yourself?"
"Yeah, I mean I know how much you love Violet and I know how much you'll love this baby, but you know...as far as me...I didn't just want to like...I don't know...make you feel stuck with me."
"Stuck with you?"
"Yeah."
"Why do you think I told you I only wanted you to be the mother of my child?"
"I dunno. Cuz it was about the right time for Violet to get a sibling and it didn't seem like you'd found a girl up there to be the mother and you knew I'd share custody and we already had a setup that was working out pretty well and-"
He sat up abruptly. "Stop. Just stop. I built my house next to the woods. I painted the front door green because I once heard Prim say it was your favorite color. I didn't decorate anything except Violet's room. I didn't try to find another girl to be the mother of my child. I didn't even have sex with anyone else. Do you think I only care for you as the mother of my child?"
"No," she said hastily, sitting up too. "I know that you care about me on some level other than that. I mean, you know, what you said about how victors understand each other and you didn't want to hurt me during the quell and all that, but it's not...it doesn't mean that...that you love-" she broke off, her voice shaky, her eyes tearing up as she struggled with her vulnerability.
"I hated you at first," he said, and she jerked her head and blinked, taken aback at his words. "I wanted you dead. I wanted to take my sword and carve my name into you. But do you know what happened instead?" He lifted her hand and gently pushed three of her fingers to her palm, until only her first finger remained, and he pressed it to his chest, just a little to his left, and he spelled it out over his heart.
K
A
T
N
I
S
S
The sheer depth of his vulnerability was too much for her and her tears began to fall before he'd reached the I, but he kept going.
When he was done, he flattened her palm against his chest and he reached out and took her chin in his other hand, swiping his thumb across her cheek to wipe away her tears. "That's what happened," he said. "And not because of Violet, although I love you even more because of her. And this little...bun in your oven," he said as he released her chin and caressed her abdomen."But because of your strength and your grit and your resilience and your warmth and your ability to recognize and fight for what's good."
Katniss let out a sob and covered her face with her free hand.
And because of your incredible capacity to forgive," he choked out as his eyes started to fill with tears. He stopped himself, swallowing hard and swiping the back of the hand not holding hers to his heart across his eyes. "To forgive me for the things I did and said in that first arena and on our tour. To see me as more than just some fucking sociopath."
He lost it again briefly, but then with a shake of his shoulders he mastered himself and the words came pouring out. "Do you know that's why I am who I am now? Because you challenged me without even realizing you were doing it. I loved Violet more than life itself before she was ever even born, and I knew I wouldn't be a bad father but I didn't know that I could be a good one until you made it clear that you had faith in me and that you trusted me and that you expected it of me when really no one including me would have blamed you if you'd done the opposite. And I told myself I had to live up to it. I had to prove you right. And I don't know, maybe I would never have fallen in love with you if it weren't for Violet, but it doesn't fucking matter. Because I did and it's all tangled up now and I can't just...I can't just...I don't know even know what I'm trying to say anymore."
He dropped his head and shook it back and forth. And then he raised it again, and he pried her hand from her face and looked her in the eyes. "I'm in love with you," he said firmly. "For you. She's just what led me to you. She's what made me see all of the reasons you deserve to be loved." And then he took her in his arms and let her cry into his neck.
"Jesus christ Katniss," he finished unromantically. "I had no idea you wanted to come live with me or I would have said something months ago. God years ago. Please don't hold shit back anymore and I won't either. Deal?"
She nodded against him and sniffled. "Deal," she whispered. And then she gathered her courage and swallowed her pride. Because he had made himself over for their daughter and for her and he deserved to hear it too. "I'm in love with you too," she said. "For you. And you're right. I don't know that I would have fallen in love with you if it hadn't been for her, but it doesn't matter."
And she drew his head down to hers.
And he pushed her gently back onto the bed.
And this time she whispered I love you into his ear as he came.
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A long note on characterization
First of all, you don't need to read this unless, for some reason, you're interested in my ramblings on why I wrote the characters the way I did. If you're not interested, then stop right now and the epilogue will be up in the next few days.
If you are interested:
Cato made an excellent Career because the Academy and the culture in 2 shaped him to be one. He's single-minded and he's determined, as we can tell from the book, and that's part of what made him win the games. He's also incredibly proud, much more so than any of the other victors from 2, and that's why he gets absolutely pissed at the system when he realizes he's just entertainment. His pain and self-loathing take over for a while, but when Plutarch and Katniss present him with the possibility of somehow taking revenge and making a choice for himself, he ultimately agrees even though he's reluctant to play the monster again.
In his own way, he actually holds himself accountable by trying to change, even though he doesn't do it for the right reason. It's simply that he can either play the powerless victim who stays in line and excuses what he does because he says he has no choice like Brutus or admit to himself that the things he's done are unacceptable and try to take control of his own life. He chooses the second option not out of conviction or altruism, but because his pride won't let him accept the first one. That and, he actually cares about (notice I didn't say loves) Katniss by this point, though he doesn't realize it, and if she's bound and determined to let someone "rape" her on national television anyway, he figures it shouldn't be for nothing.
His whole life has been so focused on the games, so it's deeply upsetting when it's over with and it doesn't pan out as he expected. The rebellion distracts him for a bit, but afterwards, he's floundering again, with no sense of identity. And he's struggling with simultaneously feeling used by Katniss/the rebels and like a rapist (even though Katniss doesn't define it as rape) because he didn't need the drugs.
Someone once told me that deep down humans really only want three things: to have a purpose, to have integrity, and to be accepted and loved for who they are. Cato doesn't feel like he has any of these things, and that's when he really starts to struggle.
When he finds out Katniss is pregnant, it snaps him out of his funk. Because now he has a purpose and the hope that he can be loved and accepted by his child one day. The tipping point for him and Katniss is when he protects her during the bombing, because she subconsciously realizes that he has the capacity to be a good father if he's nurtured. Without making a conscientious decision to do so, her instincts guide her to include him in raising Violet and to display a high level of trust in his parenting abilities. His focus and determination to meet her expectations set in again and so it produces a healthy cycle between the two of them, where she trusts him with Violet and he proves that she's right to do so. This cycle is ultimately what helps Cato to heal.
Cato is not Peeta, but in the end Katniss falls for him for the same reason that she fell for Peeta. Because he represents rebuilding and creation and healing. He represents that people can change for the better. When she uses the word "create" to describe what the two of them did, that's another moment when she has a profoundly positive effect on him.
My Cato can be sweet and simple like Peeta, it's just been suppressed by the Academy. He can also be persuasive and silver-tongued, but whereas Peeta can do that almost all of the time, the Cato I wrote can only do it when he a) cares enough to (hence why it really only happens with Katniss, and why at one point in Chapter 10 he thinks of himself as not "good with words.") and b) feels strongly about/genuinely stands behind what he's saying. This isn't meant to paint Peeta in a negative light; Peeta only uses his ability with good intentions and there's immense value in what he can do. He is a natural diplomat, and Cato is not.
I find Cato a very easy character to write, because there are so many directions to take him.
Katniss on the other hand…
One of the main reasons I've chosen to write Cato mostly with other girls (like Foxface and my OC, Hera) is because Katniss makes me nervous. It's too easy to really fuck her up and I'm not sure I got her right. But something about the way Suzanne Collins wrote her always made me think that she was naturally very warm and inviting as a child. I think it has to do with the way Peeta describes her when they're little. With the red dress and the braids and the enthusiasm and how she sang. But her father's death and her mother's virtual abandonment and the realities of life in 12 force her to change and become mistrustful of others. Her warmth is not entirely snuffed out, however, and we see it with Prim and Rue.
There's that part in the first book when Clove is dying that Katniss notes just a bit of empathy for Cato and acknowledges he may not be entirely unfeeling. In the movie, she sees him come to a bitter understanding of the truth as he holds Peeta in a headlock. Katniss displays pity for him in both the book and movie when she kills him to end his suffering.
Those moments led me to believe it wouldn't be out of character for her to pity him when she witnesses his altercation with Brutus on the tour, and then to display the empathy towards him that she does when she toasts him the first time. She doesn't like him and she doesn't entirely forgive him yet. Nor does she really care all that much about him. But she no longer hates him at this point.
I decided to play up her ability to empathize, which is why, after she visits the Academy, notices that Cato engages in self-harm, and learns that he's being pimped out, she comes to understand him more. At some point immediately after the quell, she really starts to understand the extent to which he's been used, not just by 2 and the Capitol, but by Plutarch and the rebels (and even her) as well. And although I never wrote it in, she has some admiration for his refusal to just put his hands up like Brutus and the other victors from 2 and say "Can't help it. Not my fault. Didn't have a choice." She also realizes that she too has made some mistakes and that she'd be a hypocrite if she didn't forgive him.
Where I'm not sure I was right is when I have her simply agree to Plutarch's plan. She's a much more reluctant rebel in the books. I tried to put in some explanation in chapter 4 of why she chose to go this route, but I'm still not convinced I wrote her correctly in that sense. This is an instance where plot won out for me.
I've already explained above why she comes to trust Cato. Mainly because of the fact that he put his life on the line for the sake of his unborn child, and because of his reaction when she told him the sex and showed him the ultrasound. And I think the story pretty much makes it clear why she eventually falls in love with him.
Another thing that facilitates their bond is that they experience an ethical gray area together, specifically about whether or not they made the right choice when it came to agreeing to the quell plan, and they support each other through their mutual guilt over it. Honestly, I don't know that they diddo the right thing.
Katniss also helps Cato to understand that perhaps Brutus and the D2 system aren't completely wrong either, first when he overhears her describe the tradition of training and volunteering as form of rebellion in its own way to Gale, and then when she encourages him to forgive Brutus because he might have had his reasons for staying in line.
And finally, as for Gale:
I know that many people aren't comfortable with how Gale was written off in the series, but I always thought it was realistic that in some way everything that happens to Katniss would really fuck up their relationship. And that's exactly what happens in this story. He wants so badly for it to go back to the way that it was so he can advance it into romance, but she (or the narrator, but from her POV) explains in the beginning of Chapter 4 that she can't. He doesn't lose out to Cato; he is, as Katniss notes, just another casualty of the games. And I think 12 would have been far too painful for him without her, so it's realistic he would have gone somewhere else after the war.
Thanks again for reading!